Three Words, First Word, Round

VOID Gallery Derry, 2019

From I Am What You’ve Come To See, curated by Mary Cremin

Taking the audience on a tour through the exhibition, Three Words – is a performance piece made up of charade-like sketches between the artwork and its fictional maker as they journey through the landscapes-cum-chapters of the exhibition in search of an alternative reading of the works. Among other things, Shiel’s folie à deux thrashes between form and façade, sculpture and prop, dialogue and monologue to explore the veracity of creative intent, the indeterminacy of meaning, and the sound that circles make as soon as they are born. See transcript below.

In all works of fiction there belies an agreement that the reader/the viewer will allow for a suspension of disbelief. In this exhibition I Am What You’ve Come To See, the artist Sonia Shiel has transformed the three gallery spaces into a circular narrative, casting the audience as its central protagonist. The viewer is compelled to move through the galleries by a series of scripted audio-visual instructions, strategic objects and obtuse props that feign seemingly ungovernable chances – in a shape-shifting journey that is entirely staged. With Three Words - the whole exhibition is re-staged.

Three Words, First Word, Round

***

INTRODUCTION

See, I've already pictured this. Right now we are all on our feet, I'm looking down at my phone, and I'm looking especially great, and you're a captivated audience. I'm telling you what an app is saying to me, and we're walking around the exhibition, me under its spell, you under mine. And pointing to the phone, - I go straight into the app's technology pitch. Which says - 100,000 years ago, we had stories and those stories made pictures on the wall, and people got friendlier looking at them, talking about them. 3,500 years ago we got the alphabet and started writing to each other and collecting everything that began with a letter, and we got even friendlier. 28 years ago we got powerpoint and shortly afterwards the internet, and we made loads of cash together and that way we all got a lot friendlier.Today we have apps and we share everything now, we are all friends, everybody in the whole world. And it was all So-Easy.

And it really was ...

Because that's what we are looking at, there are So-Easy apps for everything. There's a So-Easy app for holding secrets and a so-easy app for hooking up. This one is So-Easy for thinking. In artistic mode it gives the artwork an autonomous voice - and that voice ensures you don't get carried away in your production and betray its integrity. I really recommend it. Now I'm on the final task, and this is what it says.

Selecting three words only, please explain what we are seeing without ever using those words.

Please refer at all times to the app's true unedited recollection of your thoughts to date and do not use the phallogocentric filter we are all so bored with. When you begin - you are ready.

1st word - PLACE YOUR FINGER - entrance

Three words, first word, round.

No. Bigger. Says here - Round is later, square comes first. Three words, first word, strong. No, says here - Can't say for sure it's any better.

Three words, first word look at it like this.

You've just come in and an indefinite article greets you, (artist displays artist’s own dress with imprint of nude) and it takes you all the way back to the beginning. And it says “Here you are painting Venus, as you always have nude, and leaning”

And it looks this way. (artist leaning)

- Her blonde hair is blowing into the wind. Like this. (artist demonstrates)

- And you have put an arrow through her heart. Like this. (artist demonstrates)

Now, it says, - You are happy, you paint in the foreground Adonis. You paint him moving away the bushes to reveal her. And his hair is also blowing in the wind. His right leg looks to be fading, and the brushstrokes are loose, and the colours are dark. But his sandals are gold, the ones you wanted last summer. And… He has three hunting dogs, but you can't find room for the third,

So you just indicate him, chi chi chi, and then cut off his head. And you stand back, and you realise you've left Cupid out altogether. Didn't cross your mind. So you make him really small, a baby,

- Like this. (artist demonstrates)

The size of your finger. Fat, so he is not confused with a bird. And he gets all the attention. And you never think about it again. Until one day you see loads of babies on the telly - babies selling countries, babies raping and boasting, babies in charge, babies of all ages, babies older than you, carrying arrows. And you have a colour in your hand, and it's yellow. And that's all you've got.

THE DIAGONAL - GALLERY 1

Three words, first word from there to B.

C the arctic fox.

It makes sense. Assisted here by gravity, in-part tethered, in-part free. Like all of us. - None the less, atop a dangerous canopy. - Too wilful to enslave gets robbed. Savagely.

That's under-lined here

And there's a list, also.

- Taken is the ground. - Taken is the sky. - Taken is everything that grows between the two.

So cute. So, so cute in any number, but one.

Three words, first word, known quantity. Think instead infinity and take it into your hands. It's heavy or light, you decide. It isn't stated here. Make it blue and electric, and stretch it out into thin lines. And it says, in bold letters

- LET'S CALL THEM LIVES.

And this is all of them, broadly speaking - 1,2,3. (artist demonstrates)

4 dimensions of them. - Lines crossing, here. - Lives blurring, here. And it says .. “That this one” ... No. “This one” ... No. “This one” ... is perfect. But, it's not the one you'll choose. “Walks you take by instinct make a path and others”... it says, “make a ruse”

So here's the invitation - “RSVP” it says. Three words, first word, from memory.

- What Just Happened? I remember. - She was sitting in the armchair, the one by the window. - She had something in her hands, a kind of shape and she had no control over it. - He was sitting in a folding chair with him, and him and him, and they all had chairs, four folding chairs, right in the middle of the room. - When she came in she moved her chair, a wooden one closer to his chair, until they were together, and the three other chairs, the folding ones, moved to the window, beside the armchair but not as close to it as they were to each other. - The couple in the corner took their chairs, wooden ones over to the side of the room looking out instead of at each other and he rested his head on the wall behind him, because his chair was small. - She noticed his discomfort and offered him her chair but he said he was leaving. She said don't go and he said why, I, and she said, but I, and they both sat back down together to decide.

Three words, first word, something broader than I.

What you just thought of, first thought, best thought. That's what they all say. But, if in this context first thought is forgotten. Killed, outright, no reckoning.

Let me remind you, three words, first word tiny, with a tail. Tiny singular, determined creature.

This one with two wishes either side. A sweet, tailed and winged thing be. Sweetest ever, sweet dear, darling. Made me - so sad. Dear, Dear... Dear Pegasus

Three words, first word - To whom it may concern.

Re: Pegasus, - Small mixed-material being has many abilities. - Best of all can fly. Makes thunder when he runs. And among other things sparks lightening in the imagination. - Dumped, both wings broken, otherwise good condition. - Wormed and chipped. - Free to forever home with one kg of food and a cage.

To rescue:

Please see, please see, please... Look up. Out of the sky - tell them, many things are falling. Mayday, mayday. Like I said … Peaches

It's true, tell them - Stones and meat, falling too - that's really happened. - Clouds, completely intact clouds that don't break when they hit. Blobs, blobs with no nuclei. Every other living thing has those three syllables, that's common.- Blue spheres of sodium, red blood, bird blood, more blood. Doesn't it hurt?

Tell them, quickly, - Mayday, mayday, delta, echo! - It's easy to remember, if you have nuclei ... it hurts.

Now take yourself back to the centre, because we virtually ignored it.

- Said the wound to the visitor, open me!

That's what it did, it's a trick. There's nothing there, if pushed hard enough, you can reach the other side for sure, that's for sure. - Said the wound, touch me! That's what it did.

“Please do not” - it could have said, very specifically.

“Excuse me - Please do not touch a single thing. - Leave it, leave ittt! Three words, first word - Sit... good boy. “

“No,” Pegasus says, standing,

Three words, first word, Alpha.

***

2nd word - THE VERTICAL - GALLERY 2

Three words, second word, hard. No, constant. Three words, second word, consistent with never giving up. Except for? Never? Three words, second word, tough as in nails, and it feels like this.

- Not pulled, hammered. - Roughly bruised, kissed better. - Rough, turning to shiny, turning to gold.

“More than gold.”

- Platinum?

“More than platinum.”

- Rhodium! - Rough, turning to rhodium.

“No - more than rhodium.”

- Californium.

“Yes, Californium.”

… Dreaming. 3 years later, to the day. 300, 000 years later, I've been for a walk too.

One, two... One whole half-life, maybe two...With questions.

1) Can you?

2) If so, do?

Thanks for your time.

And it says - only a partial answer. Sorry, no. It says

- “It is the only answer.”

“According to a statement, there are several worlds vertically situated in such a manner that the ground of one forms the sky of another. The number of these worlds is stated as three - "better", "same", "worse."

And it says here, just after that

This list.

It says

- “This list is exhaustive.”

Tttfff

It gets wilder than that. Higher, more dangerous... It says here,

“- All must be risked to matter.”

No matter. No, no matter. It's not going to happen again, not after the last time.

yet you are here - bang centre, the exact half point of the narrative and you are in it.

I am, specifically, on purpose. - It's hard for you, I know that.

You killed me.

I killed you. It's so hard for me to say that.

You stole my opportunities?

I did. I stole them, that wasn't easy.

You left me dancing all alone without shelter, without home.

I did. I did that more than once.

You stole my food and water?

I stole them, I did.

And you promise to come again?

Three words, second word #cantgetenough

No #togetheris ... no.

Three words, second word often lost, should be forever.

Said the first step to the next

- We could be strangers, just for a while.

Said the second step to the last

- Can't hear you, I'm climbing, meet you at the top.

Over here, said the first step.

Over there, said the next.

Fall back!

Keep up!

All the time reaching, until we are fully grown.

But, said the first step to the next

- This place ends in a corner.

Three words, second word

- Note-To-Self

Cause for concern.

Best part may come off in the hand.

What if

- There are rules for breaking things of a single nature.

- Here on this cusp of objective space

- Exactly here, exactly where we are right now!

For safety, you can make it clear-cut. (artist pins rules to wall))

In which

- No falling is possible,

- Sharp is rounded,

- Distance is optical only,

- One route up is the same down,

- No start,

- No finish,

- Fluid momentum,

- Only gains,

But, you won't remember it that way.

Three words, second word - has a young dream.

***

3rd word - THE HORIZONTAL - GALLERY 3

Three words, third word communicates fully.

If this is it, I...

Three words, third word, hole with a W.

Not the hoops, the letters, and not the shapes, same sauce. Same as in the picture. Exactly the same. It's all been accounted for. Count it.

- The bones are there, like skeletons, some still dying, submerged, half-submerged, tic.

- Eyes popping, tic.

- Elbows forced out of knee sockets, tic.

- Displaced, tic.

- Arms, tic.

And you write in a bubble

- Are you coming home?

You write this when you are sleeping. Never busier, winkies closed, but little pinkies like canaries in the coal-pit repeating.

Come back index. Come back thumb. Make big black marks instead of song. And you can keep you shoes on.

Three words, third word, tic with an O. What about it, what about that, how's that, how'd you do it? Beat the clock. Shrug

No really, you look so good, even after all this time and I must have looked it up, because its defined here, as the indefinite continued progress of existence. But I go on to conclude - Creep! Hey you! What kind of a creep are you? What kind of a being are you? What kind of a pervert are you? What kind of friend are you? Hey! Yea, you! And time replies with an aria, and we all fall asleep. Well wake up! Don't move. Stay right where you are. Read me out loud and in a public space. These are my terms and conditions

- distinguish.

Between effect and affect. Very few people, small proportion, just peeps, can tell the difference, if there is one.Try! Tell it.Tell it what you told me earlier, about when I was just born. You said I said...

- Don't you remember?

You said I said...

- Pie.

You said I said PIE,

- But on the second day I said it in numerals.

And you said that I was ever so bright.

The brightest little circle in the whole milky-way.

You predicted it.

Foresaw it and set me on fire.

My whole circumference

- From one edge to another without breaking.

And when I'm boiling hot and people say I'm dying.

What will you have done?

You won't have done it.

You won't have done the first thing

- Adhered to any of the instructions.

Can't miss it anyhow it's ageing, no. Can't miss it, it's gaping. And, it's just the right size...And, it says here

- You put your face in, like this, you put your whole face in, and you scream.

And nothing happens. And you do it again and again. And you know you shouldn't look inside, but you do. And there they are, the things you long for. Three words, third word, the short of it

- A day at the beach

A run in the waves,

An ice-cream with a flake,

A whole winter-long of dreams coming true, of we can do anythings, be anythings.

So you speak out loud into the hole

Then I'll race you, you say.

And the hole says

- I'll challenge you.

and you say

Then I'll contest you.

and the hole says

- I'll wager you.

and you say

Then I'll summons you.

I bet you can't, the hole will say.

But you'll say

- I have, I read it more than once, and I know how it ends.

- Spoiled.

- You are spoiled rotten.

- You are a spoiled bloody rotten heartbreaking enigma

It's in between the lines we read instead.

Where - The idea moves to the protagonist, the protagonist moves to the first test, the first test equips the protagonist with special powers, the special powers move the protagonist through the second test, and the second test moves the protagonist into a hero's return. This is clear. What am I?

Three words, third word - credible.

No, in credible is fine.

Theoretically, three words, third word, nearly.

True. Three words, third word, starts with suspense.

No.

Ends happy.

No.

Starts happy - ends...